27 November 2006

Primary Sources

While reading memoirs, journals, and letters may require a great deal of winnowing to get to what’s really going to be of value to you as a writer, I’m a firm believer that there is no greater resource if one wants to really understand the mindset of the people about whom we write (plus I get such wonderful ideas from these kinds of sources *GRIN*).

7 Comments:

Ah! I'm so excited to have found you guys thanks to your guest blogger Cynthia's announcement. I write and read historical romance (starting a paranormal historical after the first of the year). What a great resource this is!

Hey there -- I enjoyed the Capel Letters (1814-1817) -- they were in Brussels pre-Waterloo and so they have loads of gossip about what went on then.

I scored a three volume set of "the Journal and Correspondence of the Miss Berry" pubbed 1866 -- found it in one of the second hand bookshops in Denver the year RWA National was there and begged to spend the beaucoup dollars on it. Have only read bits and pieces though.

I have the Creevey Papers, which I haven't read. I also have the Farington Diary (he belonged to the Royal Academy during the Georgian/Regency era) and *yawn*. However, if one is into the minutiae of the workings of the Royal Academy, it'd be interesting.

OOh! Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan's The Glitter and the Gold(one of the richest American heiresses), Seventy Years Young by Daisy Fingall (covers late Victorian Ireland), The Reminisces of Lady Randolph Churchill(Winston Churchill's mother)...and scores more! The Victorian & Edwardian eras are filled with memoirs and diaries published all the way into the 50s!